Always the Last to Know Read online

  Exhausting.

  Sex, which had become rote during the infertility years, became something I just didn’t want to bother with anymore. I knew I was supposed to care, but a person got tired of asking, don’t you know. A person can feel real bad for having to ask. John didn’t seem to notice. I stopped trying to do couple things. He didn’t seem to care. We stopped talking almost completely. It was better than forcing a meaningless conversation.

  So when I got the call that he was probably dying, the grief came as a real shock. Not as big a shock as the adultery, but that came an hour or so later.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Barb

  WORK: Babe, I miss U so much! Last week seems like a thousand years ago. I can’t stop thinking about how U make me feel. I have NEVER come that hard before. I swear I thought I was dying. U ARE EVERYTHING TO ME!

  JOHN: SAME!!! You’re amazing. I’ve never felt this way. All I think of is you, you, you. Us together. God! I feel like a new man!

  WORK: That thing U did with your tongue has me on FIRE just thinking about it.

  JOHN: You deserve to be worshipped. Your body is incredible. God, I wish I had more “golf” weekends!!! LOL!

  WORK: You can put your iron in my hole anytime.

  OMG, I can’t believe I said that!

  JOHN: Keep talking, sex kitten. You make me roar like a tiger!!!!

  WORK: I want U. All the time, any time, every time. When can we meet again??? I’m dying for U.

  JOHN: Soon. But never soon enough, my love!!!

  WORK: The things I could do to U for an entire weekend . . . week . . . month . . . lifetime! My ♥ swells just thinking about it!!! Will we ever be that lucky?

  JOHN: My heart is swelling too and not just my heart!!! LOL!!! We will make it happen!! I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You make me HAPPY.

  WORK: I am so hot for U right now. If I saw U, I’d be all over you in SECONDS. I am so PROUD of U for taking your happiness into your own hands and not feeling guilty. LIFE IS TOO SHORT!

  JOHN: IKR? I didn’t know what happiness WAS before this. I get hard just thinking about you! Have to go now. I want to do some cycling for our TRIATHLON together! I can’t even believe I’ll be doing this. I am a new man because of you!!! Miss you miss you miss you!!!

  A series of emojis followed John’s last text. A red heart. A smiley face with heart eyes. A smiley face blowing a kiss. A purple heart. A smiley face with a tongue hanging out. Another red heart.

  Then there was the abundance of exclamation points. The words in capital letters. The acronyms (I had had to look up IKR, which stood for “I know, right?”). The poor comma usage and use of the letter U instead of the onerous three-letter word. I might not have set the academic world on fire, but for Pete’s sake.

  Clearly, John had been going through a second puberty.

  “My God,” Caro said, handing the phone back. “I—I don’t know what to say, except let’s kill the bastard.” Her cheeks got red the way they always did when she was mad.

  “Well,” I said. “The wife is always the last to know. Isn’t that what they say?”

  It was two days after John’s accident. Caro stopped by after getting the message that John was in the hospital, and (unfortunately) still alive. The girls were at the hospital . . . Well, Sadie was. Hopefully Juliet was home right now, getting a little TLC from Oliver and the girls.

  “Fuck him,” Caro said, throwing up her hands. “How dare he have a mistress! Fuck him, Barb!”

  “Apparently, ‘WORK’”—I used air quotes—“is fucking him plenty.” It felt strange to curse. Kind of good, too. I’d read an article that said people who cursed were more honest. All those years of saying heck and gosh darn . . . they were over now.

  “Are you okay?” Caro asked. “You seem so . . . calm.”

  “Well, you know, he’s most likely dying.”

  “I hope he does.” Caro covered her mouth with her hand. “Sorry.”

  “I hope so, too.”

  We were quiet a minute.

  Thank God for Caro, a friend for so long, privy to just about all the issues and troubles and joys I had ever had. She was the only one who knew how hard it had been for me to get pregnant with Juliet. She was the one I called in shock when I found out about my pregnancy with Sadie. The one who’d consoled me when I dropped Juliet off at Harvard, so proud and devastated at the same time. Caro had been my campaign manager for my run for first selectman—Barb Frost for Stoningham: The Name You Trust.

  Caro was also the only one who knew I had been planning to file for divorce.

  “So let’s text her back,” Caro said, taking a sip of the bourbon she’d brought over, good friend that she was.

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah. Why not?”

  The last few texts were, obviously, from WORK, since John had been too busy having a hole drilled in his head. There was some joke in there, but I wasn’t in the mood.

  WORK: Babe, haven’t heard from U. U OK? Love U and miss U!

  Thinking of U and us and the way we are together. Miss U!

  Starting to worry. Is it HER? Pls call me. ♥ ♥ ♥ x 10000000!!!

  “‘Is it her?’” I read. “That would be me, I’m guessing.”

  “Answer her. Just to buy time for when you can think of what you want to say.”

  “And say what? ‘Hey there. This is John’s wife. You can have him. By the way, he’s brain damaged.’”

  Caro snorted. “Sounds good to me.”

  I sighed and let my head rest against the back of the couch. “This would really hurt the girls. Sadie especially. She thinks her dad walks on water.”

  “So tell her. Take no prisoners.”

  “Would you tell the boys?”

  “In a heartbeat.” That was probably a lie. Caro and Rich, her ex, had divorced with grace and humor, and I still didn’t understand how they’d pulled it off. Those two still had dinner together once a month. Caro went to his wedding, for heaven’s sake!

  That’s what I’d been hoping for, if not expecting. An amicable divorce where we still saw each other on the holidays. If he wanted someone else, I wouldn’t have cared, not once the divorce was final.

  It was the deceit that had my panties in a twist, as the young people said. He’d cheated on me. Had there been other women? Was WORK the first time he’d had an affair?

  I’d probably never know, would I?

  I closed my eyes. The bourbon made a nice warm spot in my chest, and after two nights without sleep, I could use some relaxing. When I left the hospital earlier today, Sadie gave me the stink eye for saying I needed to go home. Juliet told me to take a long bath and make sure I ate a real dinner. Such was the difference between my two children. I’d only just walked in the door when Caro came in like an angel with bourbon, and a long, comforting hug to boot.

  John had a mistress. He was young again. He had discovered what happiness was, did things with his tongue and was now in a medically induced coma.

  “I want to find out who she is,” I said suddenly. “I mean, Caro, who the hell would want that old windbag? She sounds like she’s twenty-three. He’s seventy-five years old, don’t you know! And he’s got that horrible nose! Thank God the girls took after me. That there’s a blessing, you know what I’m saying?”

  Caro laughed. “I love when you talk Minnesotan to me.”

  “It’s because I’m a little drunk. I think I had a breakfast bar in the car this morning, so this is my dinner.” I held up the glass. Caro always had the good stuff. Woodford. John was cheap when it came to liquor. He’d never bought a bottle of wine that cost more than ten dollars.

  Caro squeezed my hand. “By the way, yes. Thank God they both look like you. But some women will do anything for a man. Especially a married man.” She stood up. “I’m gonna ca
ll for a pizza. I’d offer to cook you something, but I just don’t love you that much.”

  I started laughing, the exhausted, wrung-out kind of laughter that was hard to stop.

  A mistress! Who’da thunk it?

  From the kitchen, I heard Caro calling Wood Fire. “It’s a rush job, okay? A pizza emergency for the first selectman.” Caro’s voice was soothing and warm, and people just loved her. I sure did.

  People loved me, too. They should. I loved being useful, loved helping out and being friendly. The only two people who didn’t love me were my husband and Sadie. Well, Sadie probably loved me. She just didn’t like me all that much.

  “So why would someone want a married man?” I asked when Caro came back from the other room. “Especially an old married man?”

  “Money, honey. For one, he’s close to death. Whoops. Sorry. I meant figuratively. I bet she’s some young slut who figures he’ll leave you, marry her, and then she’ll get all his money.”

  “You know, we’re not exactly rolling in it. We did fine. We have enough for retirement. No one’s going to inherit much other than this house.”

  “Which our trashy whore probably doesn’t know,” Caro said. “For two, he’s already proven he’s a keeper for someone. ‘Married fifty years? Oh, he’s a family man!’ She never thinks, ‘If he cheated with me, he’ll cheat on me.’ Because that could never happen. Her vagina is so special, it has unicorns in it.”

  I snorted again.

  Caro took a sip of bourbon. “And for three, she gets a rush off the competition.”

  “How are you an expert on this?”

  “I read articles on the Internet.”

  I smiled, but it died a quick death. “The thing is, Caro, I didn’t know we were competing. I thought John was just . . . done. You know. In the bedroom. He never . . . you know. Made a move. Not that I minded. We were barely talking these past ten years.”

  “Fuck him. I’m going with smothering. It’s the best way for everyone.”

  “I’m trying to feel angry here. I didn’t want to stay married, and neither did he, apparently, but I’m not the one who snuck around. And now look! If she’d take him off my hands, I’d be grateful.”

  “Of course you would!” Caro said staunchly. “You were all set to ditch him. He didn’t deserve you, Barb.”

  “I know.” Another sip of bourbon.

  And yet . . . and yet there was the embarrassment.

  My husband was cheating on me. It was so ridiculous and cliché. WORK made him feel young again. Wow. Breaking news, people. Screwing around behind your wife’s back is exciting. Dating a younger woman makes you feel like a stud.

  It was pathetic. There was no other word for it. He was acting like every idiot man who’d ever cheated on his wife. And like teenagers discovering sex, he thought he invented all those feelings.

  I had been planning to take the high road. Divorce him. Bury the corpse that was our marriage.

  Cheating had never occurred to me. I took those vows seriously, you bet I did.

  I’d worked so hard to make our home a lovely place, and even harder raising our girls. If Sadie and I rubbed each other the wrong way sometimes, it didn’t matter too much. They were fine girls. Good people. Juliet designed those amazing buildings, and Sadie taught little children to appreciate art. There was so much to be proud of.

  But it had always been me who did the work. John was the provider, and I made it so he didn’t have to lift a finger around the house. He liked it that way. Who wouldn’t?

  But when it came to the marriage, the nuts and bolts of it, the conversing, the staying close, the intimacy and the social life, I felt it should’ve been more mutual. He had done nothing. Those dance lessons, going to the annual scholarship auction, the bird-watching club, the bowling league . . . none of those things had been his idea. Women were responsible for what the couple did. It wasn’t fair, but it was true. John agreed to do this and that, but he never suggested a damn thing.

  Then, being turned down for a little love, some affection, well, that stung. Before I’d thrown up my hands regarding sex, his absentminded professor bit had hurt when he failed to notice a filmy nightgown or the fact that I’d sprayed the pillowcases with perfume, moisturized my skin like it was religion. I’d been a nice-looking woman. Still was. John, he had to be reminded to take a shower, for Pete’s sake! He’d go for days without shaving, looking like a bum. That potbelly, his drooping man-breasts. He didn’t care if I found him attractive. But WORK . . . oh, she inspired him to do a triathlon!

  I had wondered about his sudden interest in the gym last fall. About those new clothes he’d bought with Sadie on one of his visits to the city—shirts with floral prints, like something a girl would wear, and pants that stopped an inch above his anklebone. He’d even taken to wearing a little porkpie hat, and I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes, he looked so dang ridiculous. He wasn’t fooling anyone. He wasn’t from Brooklyn, and he wasn’t thirty years old.

  But apparently, WORK found him just amazing.

  A flash of hatred hit me like lightning. For him and WORK both.

  “Okay, here goes,” I said, sitting up abruptly. I took the phone and started texting. “‘My darling, so so SO’—all caps—‘sorry to not be able to answer you,’ exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. ‘Family crisis going on here. Miss you and love you too. Will be in touch very soon. Longing to see you,’ exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point.” I looked at Caro. “How do you get those little happy faces and hearts?”

  “Pass it over,” Caro said. She tapped a few keys, and handed the phone back. “Are you going to send it?”

  “Watch me.” I hit the blue arrow, and a second later, we heard the swish of the text going out into the wide world.

  “Cheers,” Caro said, toasting me with a smile. “And the pizza’s here, too. A good omen.”

  * * *

  — —

  In between going back and forth to the hospital and taking care of the work that couldn’t wait, I found that I was having an odd bit of . . . well, not fun. Satisfaction, that was it.

  I’d texted WORK twice more, soothing her (his?) concerns about when they’d get together. Imitating my husband’s idiot language was simple, and WORK suspected nothing. Just sent more drivel about sex and passion and fires and what they could do to each other at the earliest possible convenience.

  If John was gay, that would make things a lot better. Living in a straight marriage, yearning for a man . . . everyone could understand that. I’d be kind to his boyfriend, welcome him, even. Maybe we’d all be friends. Brianna and Sloane could have two grandfathers, since Oliver’s dad had died when Oliver was twelve. John would finally admit that it was never me that was the problem; it was his fear of coming out, but now that he had, he would thank me for the most wonderful daughters in the world. We’d be a happy, loving, modern family, laughing and cooking elaborate dinners, and this new man (Evan, I thought, Evan was a nice name) . . . Evan would help me decorate at Christmas and bring the most delicious pies to Thanksgiving and compliment me on a turkey that was absolutely delicious, because I did do a great turkey.

  On the third text exchange, however, WORK had referenced her breasts and how she loved when John worshipped them, so that was the end of the happy gay fantasy, which was a real shame, because I had been getting awfully fond of Evan there.

  I wasn’t crushed. I wasn’t heartbroken.

  I was furious.

  John had made my life into a cliché. My wife of fifty years doesn’t understand me. Finally, I can talk to someone! Life had become so routine, so gray. I wasn’t living . . . I was just existing. You, my beloved WORK, have changed all that.

  And meanwhile, John just wouldn’t die. No sir. He kept on keeping on, leaving his daughters in misery, leaving me to stare at him as he slept in the hospita
l bed. For fifty years, I’d accepted his flaws. I knew I wasn’t perfect. I knew I had to work at life, not one of those people like Sadie, who seemed to have people falling into her lap. Yes, I wanted to divorce him. I deserved a divorce.

  John, on the other hand, had been sneaking around, becoming an athlete at seventy-five, having sex with another woman for God knew how long, all the while wearing me down with his neglect until I felt like a ghost in my own marriage.

  How dare he find happiness with another woman? How dare he leave me in charge of him now, this brain-damaged old man with a catheter?

  Honest to Pete, Caro was right. If I thought I could get away with it, I’d put a pillow over his face and smother the old fool.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  John

  Something is wrong with his wife’s face. It’s too soft. Saggy. Her eyes aren’t gentle anymore.

  He thinks she might be . . . not sick, that’s not right, but something like that.

  The years have rushed by in a river. There’s an old man living in his room. John isn’t sure who he is. His wife doesn’t notice. It’s not his grandfather, but he looks familiar. He’d ask his wife, but he can’t make words come out.

  She smells nice. Not the way she used to, but the smell makes him feel safe, and safe is the best feeling, even if she doesn’t stay near him very long. Those ungentle eyes. Shark eyes, flat and cold when they should be . . . different. He wishes she would sit against him and put her head on his shoulder. He wishes she would let him hold her hand longer, but if he does manage to grab it, she gives it a firm pat and pulls away. If he had words, he would tell her he loves her, but words are gone now, and hearing comes and goes.

  There is another woman who is here quite a lot. She talks and sits with him and sometimes gives him food. Her eyes are the same color as his wife’s but not flat. He knows her, but he can’t remember her. Some children come and go, but John doesn’t know them. They make a lot of noise and fling themselves around, and they’re scary . . . so fast and strong. Their mother is another someone he used to know. She talks to him in a brisk, kind way. Maybe she’s someone he works with at the . . . the . . . the place you go in the day to make money.